Printed indicia which are applied to T-shirts and other articles of clothing have become very popular in the last decade. Boutiques which specialize in printing fanciful indicia such as slogans, college names, or sports team names on T-shirts and other clothing, are commonly seen in shopping malls. The indicia available at these boutiques can be pre-printed on a substrate and applied with a heated press by operators at these boutiques to articles of clothing purchased by the consumer, or can be screen printed directly on an article of clothing.
In the screen printing process, a stencil screen embodying the indicia is placed over the object to be printed. Ink of one color is then flooded onto the screen by a flood bar of conventional design. The ink is of the type well-known in the industry for screen printing. After the ink is flooded onto the screen, the ink is squeegeed through the screen onto the object leaving ink of the desired color where the interstices in the screen appeared. The squeegee is of any type well-known in the art.
As the ink is flooded onto the screen, and during the print stroke, the ink tends to be forced to the edges of the screen between the ends of the squeegee and flood bar and the screen frame. This results in ink buildup which is not utilized in the printing process and is wasted. The operator must periodically scrape up the ink from the edges of the screen and place it in front of the flood bar. At cleanup time, the operator must clean the screen of all ink so that it may be reused. The ink deposits along the frame significantly increase the time required for cleanup, particularly if the ink has dried. The operator must use a spatula or putty knife to scrape the ink from the edges and then wash the area with solvents.
In an attempt to automatically prevent the ink from collecting at the edges of the screen, flood bars with integral scrapers have been developed. The scrapers work to scrape the ink from the edges of the screen automatically while the flood bar moves along the screen during the flood stroke. The integral contoured scrapers generally work, but requires the purchase of entire sets of flood bar and scraper assemblies in various sizes and lengths which can be quite expensive since different sizes of screens and indicia are used. They also do not permit the versatility or reusability of the present invention.
A need has developed for an inexpensive detachable scraper attachment which can be retrofitted to any existing flood bar. A need has also developed for a reusable scraper. The present invention solves these and other problems.